Our next stop, October 4th, was the Museum of Modern Art, located in mid-town Manhattan, and said to be the US' 4th most-visited art museum. Historically associated with the Rockefellers, it is decidedly European in orientation, although there is plenty of later American and other work in the collection. The gift shoppe and design store were about the largest we have seen. We did not dare enter. Although we very much enjoyed this museum and its collection, the lack of interpretive tours was a disappointment.
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| Its signature piece, evidently, is Van Gogh's Starry Night, 1889 |
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One of a series, as we know--a trick Van Gogh learned from Monet--
personally I prefer the Cafe Terrace at Night, 1888, at the Kroller-Muller
in the Netherlands |
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Gaugin, Still Life with Three Puppies, 1888; as anyone
knows, puppies are anything but still... |
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| Serat, Evening, Honfleur, 1888 |
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Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1908; the first of
many, many Picasos at the MoMA; among his break-out
works... |
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Among the MoMA's treats are the big windows from which you can look out upon the neighborhood |
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| Picasso, Girl with a Mandolin, 1910 |
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| Diego Rivera, Cubist Landscape, 1912; before he was Rivera |
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| Klimt, The Park, 1910 |
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| Van Gogh, Portrait of Joseph Roulin, 1889; going postal |
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| Obligatory water lilies room |
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Man Ray, Indestructible Object..., 1964 replica by the artist of
the original 1923...um...thing |
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| Another beauty out the window |
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Marcel Duchamp, In Advance of the Broken Arm..., 1915-1964; it's a long story, the gist of which is that calling something a work of art is sufficient for its being a work of art... |
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| Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940 |
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| A 2nd signature work, I guess, Dali's Persistence of Memory, 1931 |
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I'd never seen it before in person, although one sees copies, references, representations of it everywhere; never realized how tiny it is (9.5x13"); high point of the visit, for me...the topic of my Ph.D. dissertation was, to the best of my recollection, memory |
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Among my favorites, Dali did sculpture as well as everything else;
here, Retrospective Bust of a Woman, 1933.., some crumbs reconstructed
in 1970...pregnant with meaning...click to enlarge to see the ants on
her forehead |
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Tina Modotti, Telephone Wires in Mexico, 1935; somehow spoke to me... |
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Frank Loyd Wright's model for the proposed urban/suburban
city of Broadacre; thinking big... |
